Florida divides marital property under equitable distribution — § 61.075, Florida Statutes — and the statute orders judges to "begin with the premise" that the split should be equal. That premise makes the percentage the least interesting number in the case. The money moves upstream: in deciding what is marital, what it is worth, and whether a statutory factor justifies unequal division. Those three questions are this practice's home field.
Step one: classification — marital or nonmarital?
Marital presumptively includes everything either spouse acquired during the marriage (regardless of title), gifts between spouses, and the marital growth of retirement accounts. Nonmarital starts with what each spouse brought in, individual gifts and inheritances, and anything excluded by a valid prenuptial or postnuptial agreement. Then come the rules that decide real cases:
- Active appreciation. The growth of a nonmarital asset becomes marital to the extent it results from either spouse's efforts during the marriage or from marital funds — the Jensen v. Jensen rule, codified in § 61.075(6). The classic example is the premarital business a spouse keeps building; the growth is on the table even though the shares never changed hands. Full treatment on our business-owner divorce page.
- Commingling converts. Deposit an inheritance into the joint account, pay the marital mortgage from separate funds, retitle the premarital house jointly — separate property mixed with marital property tends to become marital, and the burden of proving otherwise falls on the spouse claiming it stayed separate. Clean records win these fights; wishful memories lose them.
- Paydown and improvement of a nonmarital home. When marital income pays the mortgage or funds improvements on one spouse's premarital house, the statute gives the marital estate a share — a calculation with its own formula and its own litigation.
- Interspousal gifts are marital. The jewelry, the car "in your name," the transfers between spouses during the marriage — marital.
Step two: valuation — and the date that moves fortunes
Assets don't divide; values do. Houses get appraisals, businesses get the full valuation apparatus (approaches, normalization, and Florida's enterprise-vs-personal goodwill line under Thompson v. Thompson — see high-net-worth divorce), and retirement accounts get statements plus the tax-aware math that a 401(k) dollar is not a Roth dollar is not a brokerage dollar. Florida judges also set the valuation date asset by asset, as justice requires — filing date, trial date, or another date entirely. In a volatile year, for a growing company or a concentrated stock position, the date argument alone can swing six or seven figures. It is argued, not assumed.
Step three: the equal premise — and what rebuts it
Unequal distribution requires written findings on the statutory factors: each spouse's contributions to the marriage (including homemaking and child-rearing), economic circumstances, the marriage's duration, interruptions of careers or education, contribution to the other's career, and — the factor with teeth — intentional dissipation, waste, or destruction of marital assets within two years before the petition or any time after. Spending marital money on an affair, gambling losses, transfers to relatives, assets that vanish into cash: proven dissipation gets charged against the dissipating spouse's share. Courts also use interim partial distributions (§ 61.075(5)) in the right cases — freeing up funds mid-case for fees or necessity when the estate can bear it.
The assets that decide Orlando cases
- The home. Sell now and split, or one spouse keeps it with a refinance deadline and buyout — drafted with what happens if the refinance fails. Exclusive use during the case (commonly tied to the children) is a separate temporary-relief fight.
- Retirement accounts and pensions. The marital portion divides by QDRO or transfer incident to divorce — tax-free when done correctly, expensive when not. Military and government plans have their own rulebooks; our military divorce practice covers the USFSPA side.
- Businesses and professional practices. Classification, valuation, goodwill, and buyout structure — the four fights covered across our business-owner and high-net-worth pages.
- Equity compensation. RSUs and options allocated between marital and nonmarital by when they were earned, not when they vest.
- Debts. Equitable distribution divides liabilities too — including the credit card the other spouse ran up and the tax bill nobody mentioned. Debt characterization follows the same marital/nonmarital analysis, and joint creditors are not bound by your judgment: indemnification and refinance terms are the drafting that protects you.
- The small stuff with big handles — vehicles, crypto, collections, timeshares, frequent-flyer balances, and the family dog (property in Florida, negotiated like it isn't).
Hidden assets and the proof problem
You divide the estate you can prove. Mandatory disclosure (Fla. Fam. L. R. 12.285) is the floor; subpoenas, forensic accounting, lifestyle analysis, and tracing are the tools when the affidavit and reality diverge. Concealment carries real consequences — unequal distribution, sanctions, fee awards, and judgments reopened for fraud. The playbook is detailed on our high-net-worth divorce page, and it scales down to ordinary estates more often than people expect.
Property division FAQs
Florida is an equitable-distribution state whose statute starts from an equal split of marital assets and debts. Courts can divide unequally only on written findings under the statutory factors — dissipation being the most common. The bigger levers in real cases are classification (what's marital at all) and valuation (what it's worth), not the percentage.
The house itself starts nonmarital — but marital paydown of the mortgage, marital funds spent on improvements, and any retitling into joint names all give the marital estate a share (or convert the asset entirely). The records of what was paid from where decide the size of that share. Bring the closing documents and the payment history to the first meeting.
The court can look back two years before the petition (and at everything after) for intentional dissipation — and charge wasted or diverted funds against that spouse's share of the estate. Bank subpoenas and tracing make these cases; move quickly, because the paper trail is freshest early and temporary orders can freeze further movement.
Far less than people think. Property acquired during the marriage is presumptively marital regardless of title, and a spouse's name on a deed, account, or LLC neither protects an asset nor forfeits it. Title matters at the margins — how things transfer, what creditors see — but classification runs on when and how the asset was acquired and grown.
Under the same equitable-distribution analysis: marital debts (incurred during the marriage for marital purposes) divide equally as the starting premise; nonmarital debts stay with their owner; and wasteful or secret debt can be assigned to the spouse who created it. Remember that your judgment doesn't bind lenders — indemnification clauses and refinance deadlines are what actually protect your credit.
No — sale is one option among several. One spouse can keep it with a buyout funded by offsetting assets or a refinance (drafted with a deadline and a fallback), or, with children, courts sometimes defer sale for stability. The right answer is usually financial rather than sentimental: what the equity is worth against the estate, and what the keeping spouse can actually carry.
Related services at Mack Law
High-Net-Worth Divorce
Business valuation, goodwill, executive compensation, forensic accounting, and privacy — for seven-figure estates.
Divorce for Business Owners
Protecting the company through the case — valuation, status quo, partners, and buyouts.
401(k), IRA & Stock Division
QDROs handled in-house, transfers incident to divorce, and the tax traps that follow careless drafting.
Prenuptial Agreements
Your rules instead of Florida's defaults — protecting businesses, inheritances, and future earnings under § 61.079.
The estate you keep depends on the case you build.
Call (407) 749-1034 or request a confidential consultation*. Prompt responses, usually the same business day.
*Consultations are billed at a flat fee. We research your matter thoroughly before the call and stay on the phone as long as you need — and if you don’t feel the consultation delivered value, we’ll refund the fee.
This page describes Florida law in general terms as of its last update and is not legal advice about any specific situation. Statutes and rules cited include § 61.075, Florida Statutes and Fla. Fam. L. R. 12.285; Jensen v. Jensen and Thompson v. Thompson are summarized generally. Outcomes always depend on specific facts.